Microsoft, Adobe Patches Beef Up Windows Security

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This week brings two important security updates from Adobe and
Microsoft that will affect hundreds of millions of Windows users.

Yesterday, Adobe rolled out fixes for 25 vulnerabilities in its
Flash Player, ahead of its normal schedule. Microsoft also
surprised customers, following suit and pushing its own nearly
identical patch for Internet Explorer 10. Microsoft's Monday
update will only affect a handful of Windows 8 users as the new
operating system doesn't go on sale until later this month.

Infosecurity Magazine speculated that Adobe's surprise patch
may be in anticipation of Google's upcoming Pwnium 2 contest in
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia tomorrow (Oct. 10). All but one of the
vulnerabilities patched yesterday were discovered by Google, who
baked the player into Chrome. The Internet behemoth
pays freelance researchers to bust its browser and is
offering up a purse of up to $2 million for successful Chrome
hacks.

Conveniently for Chrome users, Google's browser updates
automatically. Like Chrome, Internet
Explorer 10 comes with Flash on board and also updates
automatically. A preview of the new browser on
Windows 8 has been available to some developers and reviewers
since August and goes on sale later this month.

The Redmond, Wash.-based software developer caved to pressure
from angry and annoyed users and reversed itself after announcing
that it would not replicate
Adobe's previous out-of-band patch in August.